JohnPowers, What you describe is often true, esp the part about glowing reports written by locals who fish every day and who drive the beach with 4WDs. However, Fredrick and I don't live on the beach and I don't drive a 4WD. If you read my posts further up I do tell new salt FFers that this is a hit or miss game. Like you, I get skunked a lot surf fishing and my salt reports last year reflect this. It's the nature of the game. Nevertheless, the surf is a different ball game for a lot of trout guys and well worth trying, esp this time of year. Strip a Clouser over a sandbar - yuh never know what you might catch: maybe a striper, bluefish, weakie, sea robin, hickory shad...or maybe a nice fluke like the one Fredrick posted. If the troubles you're having surf fishing bother you so much, why not stick with the trout streams you mention?

I have my trout fishing friends who also hit the salt. I enjoy their company. I just thought I'd temper the conversation. Skill, experience, gear, ability come to nothing if there are no fish there. It's a low percentage game unless you go a lot or live at the beach. Believe me I'd never opt for the salt over a trout stream. Now if they could only get the flow right on the WB.........

gfen wrote:For those of us who live in places with great trout streams, we feel the same way about our attempts for salt water fish.

Grass is always greener, I guess.

I'm sure everyone here had to put time in on their local trout stream before they could constantly catch fish .Well the salt is the same way but the fish are all wild and they get a lot bigger and most of them have teeth. If you can't catch any fish in the salt it is not the salts fault you just don't know what your doing yet .

Fishidiot wrote:....I do tell new salt FFers that this is a hit or miss game. Like you, I get skunked a lot surf fishing and my salt reports last year reflect this. It's the nature of the game.

I think FI hit the nail on the head with the words "hit or miss." I get skunked as everyone does on trout streams or any type of freshwater fishing. The fish weren't hitting (or so I tell myself) or more likely, I just couldn't figure out how/where to catch them.

I think the point JohnPowers was making is the excuse for not catching fish is that they just weren't there can never really be valid in a freshwater stream or lake. With saltwater, the narrow 100' band of water you fish along the beach, when compared to the entire ocean CAN be void of fish, and often is, so even the most skilled angler can and will smell the skunk that day. While this is true, it's really no reason to not fish, as long as the angler realizes a skunking is a real possibility (as FI pointed out above). But as Fredrick said, the rewards when you do hit it right are great - hard fighting wild fish.

I'm more of a trout and bass guy, but I let Fred & FI do the recon fishing and when they're hitting, I push my way in between them and begin casting.....

Just saying.....I've caught blues when you could tie on a bottle cap. Albacore are a pushover. When they're there. Maybe bone fishing is a skill but when there are blues and stripers in front of you, you'll catch fish. Not like the long pool at the gamelands on the WB where two dozen guys are beating their brains out trying to get just one of those rising fish. I'll be at sandy hook on Sunday with realistic expectations. Wish me luck because that's mostly what it takes.

JohnPowers wrote:Just saying.....I've caught blues when you could tie on a bottle cap. Albacore are a pushover. When they're there. Maybe bone fishing is a skill but when there are blues and stripers in front of you, you'll catch fish. Not like the long pool at the gamelands on the WB where two dozen guys are beating their brains out trying to get just one of those rising fish. I'll be at sandy hook on Sunday with realistic expectations. Wish me luck because that's mostly what it takes.

Good luck John. Hope Sandy Hook has fish close to the beach this weekend - here's wishing you diving birds in the wash and screaming drags (never hurts to dream, after all we're fishermen). If you care to, let us know what you saw or how you made out. The mullet run is in full swing.

JohnPowers wrote:I hate to be a downer. I live about 1 1/2 hours from Betty and Nicks. I'll be heading down yet again. Problem with the surf is this. When I fish the Monocacy, Mud Run, the WB, I may not catch fish but they are within casting distance. When you drive down to the surf many times there ARE NO FISH THERE. Think about it. People who post good numbers in the surf live on the beach in AWDs. You can show up in the lehigh Valley from July 15 to Sept 15 with some tricos and catch fish. I can show up Sunday with a Deadly Dick for the spinning rod and some Clousers for the 10Wt and get skunked again. Maybe I get to watch them blitzing just beyond the breakers. Believe me most of the time your not missing much.

that's why they call it fishing, not catching.....

on a more serious note, I hear ya - but the experience of fishing on the beach is completely different than a stream... sometimes you catch, sometimes you don't ~ but in the end, a bad day fishing is still better than a good day working..

I can show up Sunday with a Deadly Dick for the spinning rod and some Clousers for the 10Wt and get skunked again. Maybe I get to watch them blitzing just beyond the breakers. Believe me most of the time your not missing much.

Instead of the spinning rod get an Alvey rod and reel, you'll send that deadly dick to england for sure. They get over the breakers and then some. If fish are not on the beach then just go to the back side of I.B.S.P. and fish the bay, always good for a few fish. Or the back side of the inlet near the geo tubes. good place for weakies there when they are around..Thers always fluke somewhere too..

Guys,Most (all) my saltwater FF'ing experience is in lower Delaware. I feel fairly comfortable in the surf with a fly rod at this point. I just have a question about location, since I'm not familiar with NJ. I do not have a 4x4 to drive on the beach. I'm perfectly fine with walking miles of beach or jetties. Is there an area you can park at and walk the beach that is relatively close to the fishing grounds? Maybe northern area of IBSP?

I live in SEPA and plan on giving NJ a try the weekend before Thanksgiving, if mother nature allows. And if she doesn't, I'll have the spinning gear along just in case.

I would appreciate any general info. that can be offered. Not looking for your secret spot, just some general knowledge of the land. If any experienced FF'ing surf casters are planning to be out and wouldn't mind a newb tagging along, I could split gas/food.

Matt, Virtually all of IBSP is accessible to a foot bound angler. There are some bathing beaches that I think are closed to fishing in summer (I only fish it in the spring and fall). The paved road ends about 1.5 miles from the lower end of the park where the North Jetty lines Barnegat Inlet. You can park at the end in a paved parking are and walk down to the jetty. This is what I described doing further up in this thread. IBSP is a beautiful place and my favorite saltwater fishing destination in the northeast (when I can't get to Montauk :) ).